News from AC Goatham, Great Britain's largest apple and pear grower by area and tonnage
Having gained exclusive supply to ALDI last year, Goatham's and ALDI have entered into a new venture!
AC Goatham has signed a new £750 million deal with Aldi, which will see the Goatham family supply the retailer for a further 20 years.
AC Goatham & Son has supplied Aldi with apples and pears since 2016 and was announced last year as the retailer's sole supplier of British apples.
The £750m deal will also see the introduction of a new orchard - a 200-acre plot on New Green Farm in Gravesend, growing a mix of Gala and Braeburn apples.
Aldi, which is the UK's fourth largest retailer, said the deal would provide 'vital support' for the British fruit sector.
Founded in 1947, and run by Clive Goatham and his son Ross, the farm supplies 250m apples and pears each year - more than five times the volume it initially supplied in 2016.
The business has big plans for its future, including work to extend the growing season with controlled atmosphere storage.
Ross Goatham, managing director of the farm, said: "This is a fantastic achievement and a real testament to the work both AC Goatham & Son and Aldi have put into the agreement to have created something truly collaborative.
Julie Ashfield, managing director of buying at Aldi UK, added that the deal demonstrated the supermarket's "long-term commitment to championing British produce."
Out in the orchards....from my Agronomist friend in the West Midlands, an orchard update!
"After another inch of rain in the last week, we are looking forward to a dry week in Herefordshire. The inevitable consequence of all the rain this spring is that we are starting to find apple scab on leaves and fruits, despite the growers' valiant efforts to keep fungicide cover through difficult spraying weather and very tricky ground conditions. The wet winter also means we are starting to see trees suffer with 'wet feet' where the roots have been suffocated by being under water and in some instances this has allowed Phytophthora root disease to get in.
Having said that, there are some very promising crops of most varieties, and conditions for cell division have been good and the consensus is that fruit size is already good. Unfortunately there was some hail in the thunderstorms we had last Sunday (26th) and a couple of growers I know of, got caught by it and incurred some damage (see the attached picture).
Below: left. Apple Scab and right. Hail damage
Despite all the trials and travails, you have to be optimistic at this time of year, as you can see the crop you have on the trees and you can hope that it will be the right size and colour come harvest to keep the supermarket technologists happy. All we have to do is keep them pest and disease-free for the rest of the summer!
Ged Futter - 'the retail mind' - Do Suppliers grow money on trees?
The supermarket wants to charge suppliers up to £400,000 to access forecast data they had previously received for free
Ged Futter said - It would appear that someone in Sainsburys believes that the answer is 'Yes'! Someone in JS has come up with a cunning plan (not involving turnips) to start selling data (some of which used to be free) for gigantic sums of money. Just how much it will cost you depends & it is a sliding scale, from a 'relatively' small amount up to sums in excess of £400,000. Clearly this money that is sitting in a Supplier's account labelled 'rainy day money - use in an emergency'.
We know that data is being monetised by all of the Retailers, this is yet another example of it. This time it is being badged up as a change in systems, a move from Horizon to Circana. Updating your data provider & bringing in a new, all singing, all dancing system is de rigueur for most businesses. I am sure that much of the 'new' data that will be very useful, albeit highly priced! That part of the change is not under question, it is the previous free data that is causing an issue, the bit that is used for collaborative forecasting!
As far as I understand, access to store sales of your product is something that has previously been free. It might not be to the same level that Retail Link was, i.e. constantly updated, this data was generally available in one dump, once a week. Not exactly latest technology so I can see the provider needed to be updated. How will it potentially affect the most important part of retailing, on shelf availability? We simply don't know & might not know until the gaps start to appear!
In 2018 the GCA issued Best Practice for Forecasting, stating 'Closer collaboration between retailers and their suppliers, to reduce the impact of inaccuracies' as well as 'Ensuring that suppliers are able to access adequate sales data to verify the accuracy of any deduction proposed for retrospective or trigger funding'. Apparently now the data can't be shared within a Supplier unless it has been agreed by all parties. It can't be used in any system other than theirs, so it can't be dumped into SAP for example. Without access to store level data how will Suppliers be able to verify store sales when a product is on promotion?
It looks like, on the face of it, that this change is the cunning plan of one part of a business. They have planted the magic beans & expected a money tree to appear. Unfortunately they do not appear to have run the idea past those impacted most, i.e. the Commercial & Supply team!
Back pedalling is already happening as this is actually going against what JS have been doing recently. They've been collaborative with Suppliers & more engaged than they have been for a long time! What happens when you work collaboratively with your Suppliers & engage with them? Look at their current market share performance for the answer. This is not a version of fulfilment fees, it's just a clumsy approach that has not been fully thought through. It's not the first & won't be the last....
Click on the retail mind
Finishing this week's Journal on a 'nostalgic note'
Every Friday a local 'free' Magazine arrives on our doorstep with the Daily Papers. The Wealden Advertiser, like many free publications in communities across the nation, contains adverts for local services, news et al.
As I flick through the pages, taking in houses for sale (well beyond my financial resources) occasionally learning of another member of the community 'leaving this mortal coil' I come to the page where local storyteller 'Jack King' (pseudonym) shares his observations of society and compares practices of 'yesterday with today'.
In today's magazine Jack looks back at when it was common for vendors -'hawkers' to call at our door selling everything from knife and garden shear sharpening, Encyclopaedias, Life insurance, Wooden clothes pegs, plus Fishmonger, Fruit & Vegetables etc.
It took me back to when I was a young man, living and farming in Hawkhurst Kent. One of the great characters in our village 'hawked' fruit and vegetables around the parish, he was also a musician in my father-in-laws dance band. He would buy apples, potatoes etc from my Dad and he was a regular visitor to our farm. Among his many customers were all the public houses in the parish and word was that he would happily barter produce for a pint (or more) in fact 'rumour has it that his van automatically drove into any pub car park.
Anyway, and don't forget this was the 1960's - one afternoon near dusk, the Gentleman knock on our door and asked for Dad's help?
Hello Jack (to my Dad) my van wont go up the hill, would you give me a tow please?
The entrance to the farm was from a lane which led up to a small hill before levelling off - it should be said (Dad told me) that our 'Hawker' (lets call him Don) was sufficiently 'inebriated' that he could barely stand up!!!!
No way, said my Dad, but you can leave it here overnight and collect it tomorrow!
Action agreed, at which point our 'drunken driver' got in his van and backed it 'faultlessly' 100 yards down the lane and into our farm drive without hesitation!
Afterwards Dad drove him home!
That is all for this week
Take care
The Engish Apple Man